Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 46 - Part 12

00:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. Guys, [unclear]. So the Rebbe explains here the unity a Jew attains through fulfilling a mitzvah: becoming truly one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Rebbe explained two meanings in this passage of the blessing’s wording, “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos.” In essence, fulfilling a mitzvah creates a bond like kiddushin, betrothal, as between a man and his wife. More than that, “sanctified us” also has the sense of holiness: Hakadosh Boruch Hu raises us to a level of holiness, so that a person who fulfills a mitzvah becomes one with G-dliness. That is why the verse about tzitzis that we say in Shema states: “And you shall be holy to your G-d; I am Hashem your G-d.” Through performing a mitzvah, a person becomes “holy to your G-d” and is elevated to the holiness of “your G-d.” What does “your G-d” mean? That G-dliness becomes his, as with the Patriarchs. We say “the G-d of Avraham,” “the G-d of Yitzchak,” because the Patriarchs were completely united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, like a chariot to its rider. The same thing happens with every Jew while performing a mitzvah. Here we are speaking about the power present in every Jewish soul. At the time a mitzvah is performed, a Jew is like the Patriarchs, who were a chariot; that is why one could say “the G-d of Avraham” about them. The same thing happens with every Jew when he learns Torah and fulfills mitzvos. As we explained in the previous class, for the Patriarchs this was constant—twenty-four hours a day, in every movement and every limb. For an ordinary Jew, by contrast, it is primarily when he is actually learning Torah or fulfilling a mitzvah. At that moment, he is in a state of being united with the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So, as it were, one can say “your G-d” about him: he and G-dliness become one. For the Rebbe

02:26 Speaker 1 says: “Therefore our Sages required us to rise and stand before anyone engaged in a mitzvah.” So the Rebbe explains where our Sages’ requirement to rise and stand before anyone engaged in a mitzvah comes from. If you see a Jew engaged in a mitzvah, you must stand before him. Even if he is ignorant and unlearned—it makes no difference who this Jew is. Even if he is not a chariot, not someone who is completely nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu like the Patriarchs, when he is actually fulfilling a mitzvah there is an obligation to rise when you see him. Why? After all, he is not a chariot. So what is being honored here? We cannot say that the honor is for a human being as such. Rather, what is the point of honoring him by standing? It is “because of Hashem, Who dwells in and is enclothed in his soul at this time.” It is because of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because the Shechinah is enclothed in his soul at that moment. The Rebbe emphasizes that the Shechinah is enclothed. In other words, this is an inward enclothing, not something that merely surrounds him. If it merely surrounded him, it would not belong to the person himself, and there would be no reason to stand before him. Precisely because the Shechinah is enclothed in him—because this level of the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present within the person—the Shechinah is enclothed in him while he is actually fulfilling a mitzvah. That is why there is an obligation to rise and stand before him. But where exactly do our Sages require us to stand before someone fulfilling a mitzvah? Where do we find such an obligation in the words of our Sages? Have you ever heard of such a halachah? Has anyone here heard of a halachah requiring you to stand before someone fulfilling a mitzvah?

04:36 Speaker 1 The students here are learning Kiddushin. They have just learned this very passage. In fact, that passage raises a bit of a difficulty with what the Rebbe writes here in Tanya. What are you saying? What? What? Oh, so there was a whole discussion there. What is the explanation here? Let’s look at the source. This was an old question; it was never very clear what the Rebbe’s source was. In our generation, despite all the [unclear] we have, we merited the discovery of the Rebbe’s source references for Tanya, which revealed the Rebbe’s source for this point. What does the Rebbe say? First, the Rebbe cites something interesting that also appears there in Kiddushin, concerning bikkurim. The halachah says that when people from Eretz Yisroel came to Jerusalem with their bikkurim, people would stand before them as they passed. Why would they stand before those bringing bikkurim? The Rebbe cites a disagreement between the Rambam and the Rash—Rabbi Shimshon, whose commentary on the Mishnah in Seder Zeraim I can’t quite remember—and the Bartenura. The Bartenura and the Rash explain that people stood before those bringing bikkurim out of affection for the mitzvah. The Bartenura adds that this is also why it is customary to stand when a baby is brought in for a bris milah. In other words, he extends it as a general principle to other mitzvos too. Just as people stood before those bringing bikkurim out of affection for the mitzvah, so too

06:48 Speaker 1 with a bris milah and other mitzvos: when a mitzvah is being performed, the whole congregation stands. It is not only because the mitzvah itself must be performed while standing; it is because a mitzvah is being fulfilled. That is what the Bartenura says, and Rabbi Shimshon says something similar. But the Rambam gives a different reason. The Rambam writes that they stood out of respect for the community. So Tanya here does not follow the Rambam. Tanya follows the view of the Bartenura and the other early authorities, who explain that they stood out of affection for the mitzvah, not out of respect for the community. That is one point the Rebbe makes.

07:33 Speaker 2 A simple example: they stood so that people would come and bring them.

07:37 Speaker 1 Ah, that is what the Rebbe asks about the Gemara in Kiddushin. You caught it. Just imagine: if you had learned all of Shas, you could have written Tanya! You caught it at just the right moment in our study of Tanya. That is what happens when you learn: questions come up, and you begin to see how rich Torah is. Incidentally, the Rebbe does ask precisely this question about the Gemara in Kiddushin. The Gemara there says that the whole reason they stood was “so as not to cause them to stumble in the future.” What was the concern? That they should come again, and should not say, as Rashi explains, “They treat us with disrespect.” It would seem, then, that there is no reason to stand simply because someone is fulfilling a mitzvah. The Rebbe says that the Gemara raises this as a possibility, but that is not its actual conclusion. The Gemara says “perhaps”; it does not ultimately conclude that this was the reason. The real reason they stood was, as the Rebbe writes here, that a Jew was fulfilling a mitzvah. Because G-dliness dwells in him, because the Shechinah dwells in him, one must stand before him. The Gemara raises it as a possibility, not as its conclusion. On the other hand, the Rebbe raises an even more basic point. In practice, there would have to be a halachic obligation, yet nowhere does the Shulchan Aruch state that one must stand before someone performing a mitzvah. In practical halachah, the Shulchan Aruch contains no such ruling. It would seem that the Shulchan Aruch does take the Gemara in Kiddushin to mean, in practice, that people stood before those bringing bikkurim only so that they would come again, but that there is no obligation to stand before someone performing a mitzvah. That is what the Shulchan Aruch seems to imply. Not only that: the Rebbe makes another point. When you look

09:36 Speaker 1 In the laws of circumcision—the laws of circumcision in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah; that’s where the laws of circumcision are found—there is a gloss by the Rema, if I’m not mistaken. He writes that the congregation should stand before the baby, when the baby is brought in for the bris. Why should they stand? Because it says, “And all the people stood in the covenant.” That’s what the Rema writes. He brings this verse from Melachim, and from there we learn that one should stand at a bris. If anything, that shows there is no obligation to stand before someone performing every mitzvah. Since a special verse is needed to teach it regarding circumcision, that indicates there is something particular about it, not a general obligation for all mitzvos. But in any case, the Alter Rebbe brings this in Tanya too. There are a number of matters that, in practice, are not brought in Shulchan Aruch but are brought in Tanya as halachah. This is one of them: the Alter Rebbe writes here that there is a reason to stand before someone performing a mitzvah. There has been extensive research into this question. Something about it was published in journals once; I don’t remember where now—I saw it many years ago. It concerned the whole question of the Alter Rebbe’s statement, how far this matter of standing before someone performing a mitzvah applies in practice, since we need to know how to conduct ourselves. Some also wanted to connect it with standing when the Torah scroll is taken out—whether one must stand or not. In the early years, the Rebbe wrote about this. Well, he did not write that the two are connected, because there is a separate halachah concerning a Torah scroll. Standing before a Torah scroll is brought in Shulchan Aruch because of the scroll itself, not because of the person performing the mitzvah. But different practices were also seen with the Rebbe. There were periods when the Rebbe stood, and periods

11:38 Speaker 1 when the Rebbe did not stand. That is, until around 5738, the Rebbe would stand for the Torah reading. After that period, the Rebbe stopped standing during the Torah reading. But that is not connected to what we are discussing here, the obligation to stand before someone performing a mitzvah. Yes. And since we’re already discussing this subject, there is another connection to what the Alter Rebbe brings in Parshas Behar—Parshas Kedoshim. In Likkutei Torah, Parshas Kedoshim, the Alter Rebbe discusses “You shall honor the presence of an elder,” in the well-known maamar. There he speaks about knowing Torah by heart. The Alter Rebbe says that... well, what is the wording?

12:36 Speaker 3 “You shall honor the presence of an elder.”

12:37 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe says that an elder should know Torah by heart, because he... There too, this wording appears. It reads like this: our Sages said to stand before a Torah scholar because he has the Torah in his memory. There the Alter Rebbe is discussing a different point, not the performance of a mitzvah. He is speaking about a person who is proficient in the entire Torah. Because he has Torah in his memory, Hakadosh Boruch Hu dwells within him at all times. And because Hakadosh Boruch Hu dwells within him, the Alter Rebbe speaks there about honoring a Torah scholar. Since he is a Torah scholar, one must stand before him because he has Torah in his memory—out of respect for the Torah, where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present. Here the Alter Rebbe is speaking about an ignorant, unlearned person who has no Torah, and nevertheless one must stand before him. Not because of Torah, but because he is now engaged in a mitzvah. Through the mitzvah he is performing, at that moment he is elevated to the level of “with one’s actions and with all one’s wealth,” and therefore one should do so. “Because of Hashem, Who dwells and is clothed in his soul at this time; only his soul does not sense it, because of the veil of the physical body, which has not been refined.” The ignorant, unlearned person does not feel it. But his not feeling it does not change the reality. He does not feel it, but the truth is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu dwells within him as well, at the root. “Only his soul does not sense it, because of the veil of the physical body, which has not been refined.” Since his body is that of an ignorant, unlearned person, it is a coarse body, and so his body does not sense the... “And it darkens the eyes of the soul from seeing visions of G-dliness.” It affects the eyes of the soul—by “the eyes of the soul,” he means the soul’s feeling and understanding. Spiritual sight is the eyes of the soul.

14:33 Speaker 1 He does not see the unity brought about by the mitzvah; he does not see how he is now becoming united with Hashem. But the fact that he does not see this unity does not change the reality: when he performs a mitzvah, his soul is incorporated into Hashem, and he is wholly within the light of the Ein Sof Himself. Like the holy Patriarchs, who “saw their world in their lifetimes.” This brings us to what we say about the Patriarchs. We say of them that they “saw their world in their lifetimes.” What does that mean? With the Patriarchs, this is not speaking about performing a mitzvah. I know I’ll reach Gan Eden, but you are taking this as an example for our discussion. We say of the Patriarchs that they “saw their world in their lifetimes.” In simple terms, they saw the World to Come in this world. There is also the statement that they tasted something of the World to Come, as it says in Bava Basra regarding “in everything, from everything, everything.” They experienced a revelation of the World to Come already in this world. So the Alter Rebbe explains: What does that mean? What does it mean that they already had the revelation of the World to Come? It means that the World to Come is something that exists now too. A Jew performs a mitzvah and serves Hashem, and he merits Gan Eden; he merits the World to Come. But the revelation of Gan Eden, of the World to Come, is so lofty that to receive it one must be without a body. So how do we receive it? When the soul leaves the body. As long as we are in a body, we cannot feel the revelation of the World to Come. When the soul is freed from the body, the body no longer conceals it, and the soul can receive the revelation of Gan Eden. With the Patriarchs, because their bodies were so refined—as we said earlier, their bodies were refined to the utmost—even while they were still in their bodies, they already felt the revelation of

16:22 Speaker 1 the World to Come shining for them. The same applies to the Patriarchs’ performance of mitzvos. In simple terms, because their bodies did not conceal G-dliness, their being a vehicle for G-dliness—the Patriarchs were a vehicle; Avraham Avinu’s kindness was a vehicle for the Divine attribute of kindness in Atzilus, and likewise Yitzchak, each of them a vehicle for G-dliness—was something revealed to them. They felt the higher lights. They saw the G-dliness shining within them as they performed a mitzvah. By contrast, in this world we do not see it. We perform a mitzvah, but we do not see the revelation of G-dliness that takes place within us at that moment. Our not seeing it, however, is a problem caused by the physicality of the body. In truth, at the very moment a person performs a mitzvah, the light shines within him inwardly, not merely in a transcendent way. That is the Alter Rebbe’s innovation here. On the one hand, it is the light of sovev kol almin, which transcends all worlds. If we spend all day saying that it is transcendent, then our not feeling it is not because of the body or its physicality; it is because the light itself is transcendent. The Alter Rebbe’s innovation is: No. The light itself is within the person. It is clothed in him and united with him, and consequently, however one looks at it, the person is completely united with the Ein Sof. Nevertheless, he does not feel it. That is because the physicality of the body conceals such revelations from us. But this is the truth. In this connection, people often tell the well-known story that the Rebbe also told many times. It is a story about the Rebbe Rashab. The Rebbe told it many times in Kfar Chabad. The

18:06 Speaker 1 The story about the horses illustrates this point: on the one hand, there is a revelation of G-dliness here. Nevertheless, the body doesn’t feel it, because its physical nature doesn’t let us see what is going on. But that is the reality. They used to tell this story, which the Rebbe told many times in Kfar Chabad. There were scholars, intellectuals, writers—that was the setting. The story is that the Rebbe Rashab once had a discussion with various people—intellectuals, modern writers, philosophers. They raised the question of the existence of souls, angels and G-dliness—of spiritual reality. The Rebbe Rashab tried to explain the oneness of Hashem to them, but they didn’t grasp it. They weren’t willing to accept the spiritual, higher concepts he tried to explain. So the Rebbe Rashab gave them this analogy: Once there were great scholars who were engaged in the study of wisdom. They needed to travel to a certain city to pursue their studies, so they took a horse and wagon and set out. In that wagon there were three trains of thought. The horse was thinking that when they arrived, it would get some hay. The wagon driver was thinking that when they arrived, he would be paid for the trip. And the scholars were thinking about their studies—about reaching the place where they would present what they had been studying to those who needed to hear it. The Rebbe Rashab told them: The fact that the horse is thinking about hay and the wagon driver is thinking about money doesn’t change the reality that the scholars are immersed in wisdom. Yes. How would he say it in Yiddish? “Just because the horses are thinking about oats, does that mean wisdom is no longer wisdom?” Because the horses are thinking about hay, is wisdom no longer wisdom?

20:02 Speaker 1 Horses are horses, and wisdom is wisdom. So the Rebbe Rashab found an indirect way, so to speak, to tell them: Because you are preoccupied with hay, you don’t grasp spiritual matters—but spiritual reality remains spiritual reality. And this applies to us, too. The fact that we are preoccupied with hay doesn’t change the reality of what happens when we perform a mitzvah. Yes, the Alter Rebbe mentions in this chapter that when a Jew performs a mitzvah, he becomes one with his G-d. All the [unclear], and everything written in the book about performing a mitzvah—all of it, everything that happens. I don’t see it; I don’t feel it. Young men often complain: “What good is it? I don’t see anything; I don’t see any benefit.” Fine, so he doesn’t see the benefit. He performs a mitzvah and doesn’t feel [unclear] surrounding him. He davens and doesn’t feel any revelations; he doesn’t see them. The fact that you don’t feel it doesn’t change the reality. The reality is that right now—look at what is written about these times, that this is an auspicious time on this day, when certain things are revealed. People speak about their source, revelations, and a mazal that brings special strengths. Yes. And then someone starts saying, “I don’t feel it. I feel like a donkey.” True—the donkey is thinking about hay, but that doesn’t change reality. Wisdom is wisdom. And here, too, there is the difference between one who serves Hashem and [unclear]. It wasn’t only that they received twenty-four hours; they also saw what it means to recognize [unclear]. But that is at age one hundred. When we perform mitzvos, we too become completely united with G-dliness at that moment. The only thing is, we don’t—

21:49 Speaker 1 We don’t feel it. But the fact that we don’t feel it or see it doesn’t change the reality that this is how it works.